Recording guitars through an isolation cab

Hi there. I am new to the forum and a proud new owner of a Mesa Boogie Mark V. First off, it's the best amp I have ever heard. I was hoping to start a thread on recording a Mesa or any other amp through an isolation cab such as Randall's ISOc. I have this cab but I cannot get a good sound when recording a "heavy metal style" sound. I have heard of some people modifying their isolation cab. Any help would be great. Thank you.

GibBFG said:

I was hoping to start a thread on recording a Mesa or any other amp through an isolation cab such as Randall's ISOc. I have this cab but I cannot get a good sound when recording a "heavy metal style" sound. I have heard of some people modifying their isolation cab. Any help would be great.

Click to expand...

Need more info than that, duder.

What mic are you using? Where is it placed? How close is it to the speaker? What kind of speaker is in the ISO cab?

1st, i bought a DEMETER ISOLATION CABINET, WITH CELESTION VINTAGE 30:



With some obvious embellishment....i did surgery on it, to improve the inside sound.


I will say this....

no matter what you do with the build of it, or sound treatment, the size of the space inside will impart a specific 'tone' to what the mic hears.

also, the louder you play, the more 'compressed' the sound will get.


so, i continued the search, and ended up with another thing altogether.....
inspired from reading about Satriani, Lifeson, Richards, Van halen and other's recording and live setups......




my current recording technique (guitars) using a Weber Mass Lite and Palmer PDI-09.

this is for all you guys who are looking for a 'quiet' way to capture full bore tube amp sounds into a DAW, without getting evicted or divorced.



so now i use a Weber Mass Lite, 100w.


https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/masslite.htm


it works pretty well..

here's how i use it:

i go Mesa boogie Mark IIb 60 watt tube head /speaker out (8 or 4 ohm, it doesn't matter) into the Palmer PDI-09.



so, boogie speaker out into palmer 'INPUT', and then back out via the 'THRU', and that goes to the Weber, for attenuation.

From the Weber, 'speaker out' to whatever cab i want to use (the demeter isolation cabinet if i want to play loud, the celestion greenback cab if i want to monitor 'open air'.)

idea here is, if i want to record in the headphones, i can attenuate the piss out of the boogie, put it in the demeter, and you can't hear almost anything.....
if i want to play loud, and play along with my monitors blasting my backing tracks, i can use my closed back 1x12 with the celestion, or into the demter, and play as loud as i want.. the palmer doesn't know the difference, only the weber comes into play, and since i'm not micing, there's no bleed over from the guitar cab and the monitors......

so, the 'BAL. OUT' on the palmer, is an XLR out, that goes to my mic preamp, digital convertor, and into SONAR.
the switches on the top of the palmer give me line level attenuation, and 3 different 'cab and mic' sounds.
i like the NORMAL setting the best. It's all passive, the weber and the palmer, so i'm not introducing any kind of electrical noise at either of these two units.


the weber:
the feel of the response to the speaker cab, seems and feels more natural to me than other attenuators i've used before.

but, i've got to run it almost maxed out to get the 'bedroom volume' control i want for actually using my speaker cab for monitoring.

luckily, i have a Demeter iso box, that i can use as a load box to run the weber a little hotter (less attenuation, i mean)

the little palmer pdi-09 unit is the thing that's stealing the true 'amp wide open' sound, so the weber is strictly for monitoring purposes..... i'm not micing the cab.

notice the (2) attenuators on the face of the weber.....

the mids/highs one on the right, just works a little bit...
most of the energy is going to the lows and mids, so the attenuator on the left i've got maxed out, and then backed off a bit (about 1) with the highs set at about 2 or 3.

when it's maxed out, i can actually hear the speaker motor inside the cage working.
oh my god, don't dare hit the bypass switch, when the amp has the master sitting on '7'.....

LOL

i did that, just to hear the sound of the amp sitting on idle.
just that, was louder than conversation volume.

the boogie really sounds different, with the master almost wide open.
the entire tone stack, opens up, and the mids become very throaty.
6L6's like to be pushed hard, that's when they become 'musical'.

when you're using a tube amp with the master on '1', and the preamps dimed, all the tone is just preamp distortion with eq, and everything else, is just sitting on idle, and preamp distortion, isn't nearly as sweet as the power tubes cooking themselves to death.


the unit does get a bit hot...
and smells funny, at first, but the more i use it, the new burn smell is starting to go away.

i do not miss the tone stack of the full Mass at all (the 'MASS' unit comes with varying degrees of tone control AFTER the attenuation).......
the low and hi control, is enough for me.

maybe, if i was micing the cab, i might want a bit more control, but honestly, if i want more bass or less treble, i'll just tweak the amp.

using this device, has cause me to re-think all of my gain structures, and choices of eq settings.
the pedals, seem to have more tone and control, now that i'm running the boogie at it's optimum setting for 'output distortion'.

fluff191, I am using 2 mics. An SM57 on-axis just at the edge of the dust cap and a Sennheiser e906 about 1/4 way between dust cap and speaker edge. They are about 5inch away from speaker. I was thinking that would compensate for mo grill cloth. On my 2X12 recto cab if I mic it against the grill it seems to be 4-5 inches away from the actual speaker. I get really good results with cleans and lo-gain. kind of AC/DC sound but, for something more modern like; Staind, Alter Bridge, Black Label Society, or Disturbed, it seems it's very "woofy" especially with palm mutes on a D power chord for example. My guitars are tuned 1 guitar in standard and sometimes drop D and 2 guitars are droped down a half step and sometimes drop C#. I've tried rolling back the gain and bass but then it sounds very weak and thin. Anyway, I'll keep plugging away and see what happens. I just recently lined the inside of the ISO cab with some extra foam and I also set the cab on casters that will hopefully decouple it from the floor a bit. Any help or advice is appreciated. Cheer! \m/

all that foam wont make that much difference, if you're playing loud inside the cab.

Just an update. I recorded a short piece the other day, kind of in the style of Mark Tremonti of Creed/Alter Bridge. I must say, the casters and the foam I used on the Randall ISO cab seems to have worked tremendously. I mic'd it like I said previously with a SM57 and an e906 and recorded two takes for a total of 4 tracks. Once I get time and figure out how to post it for everybody to hear it and comment, I will do so. In the mean time; although I have found success with the ISO cab, I am now looking at clearsonic's AmpPac 21 ISO solution for guitar amps. Seems to be much better sounding and more convenient. Anyway, 'till next time. Cheers! \m/

I have played through iso cabinets before, and I have really never been satisfied with the tone.

I'd also like to mention, that I think you're wasting your time, and impacting your tone negatively by using an attenuator; I only find them useful when cranking amps that benefit from power amp distortion, and they always do something to the tone that isn't so pleasant. Nearly all Mesa/Boogie amps have cold biased power amplification sections that are meant to impart little tonal COLORATION; they are just cleanly amplifying the preamp signal.

I would grab a SM57 instead of that condenser you have on the speaker in the picture.

I also would try to get the microphone as close as possible to the face of the speaker; the further you are from the speaker, the more coloration you're going to get from the enclosure.

You would likely be better off BUILDING a box that is well isolated and insulated, and putting a 1x12 cabinet inside of it, decoupling the large box from the floor. If you need help, I made a thread here, at recordingreview.com, but you'll have to sign up to see it:

http://forum.recordingreview.com/f43/infamous-speaker-isolation-box-b-clips-14690/

Cheers,

Greg

http://www.franknitsch.com/speaker-sims/recordings.php

This link is a great reference for DI boxes like the Palmer PDI09. I roll with a PDI03 and a Grendel ISO Cab loaded with a celestian v30 and mic'd with a SM57 I picked up a year or so ago.

The ISO cab is a bit boxy sounding, but it gives a character to the sound in tandem with the PDI03 that is unique and edgy.

Google for Rivera Silent Sister. It isn't an air tight iso , it is suppose to sound more natural. There are some pretty good vids on rivera's site explaining the design in detail and a demo of it. I have a DIY iso that is quite large, in the end I wish I looked into palmer's products.